ESP Colour in Swindon has a strong reputation for supplying high quality commercial work efficiently and to achieve that, it needs speedy, reliable presses which can produce predictable results. Anthony Thirlby has been trying to glean the actual capacity of his two Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75-5+L presses and this year end he has done just that, using data directly from the presses.

On the first Speedmaster XL 75 press, a straight five-colour with coater, it handled 278 make-readies within the 156 hours available within the weekly schedule. The average make-ready time was 4 minutes 9 seconds and the average net speed was 14.135sph. In total it output 1.783 million impressions.

Turning these statistics into real life sales, that means, this one press produced a staggering EUR 124.129 of work in one week.

On the second ESP press, the Speedmaster XL 75-5+L-P perfector, 202 make-readies were produced in a 160 hour week. The average make-ready was 4 minutes 33 seconds, and the average speed was 14.217sph. In total it output 1.902 million impressions. That means that this press produced EUR 134.070 of print in a week.

High number of make-readies and high impression count = record utilization of two Speedmaster XL 75 presses

"These presses are phenomenal," says Anthony Thirlby, managing director of ESP Colour. "If you convert this productivity into annual output, even allowing for two weeks maintenance on each, it means across the two presses we have the capacity to produce EUR 12.841 million worth of work. It's about great technology, good organization and processes and having a right mix of skills. We use both experienced staff and apprentices."

The company bought its first Speedmaster XL 75-5+L in 2009, returning to Heidelberg a year later, after producing 50 million impressions on that press, to buy a second machine. The first has produced 141 million impressions in 32 months and the second has achieved 82 million in 18 months. Both presses operate on a 112 hour week as standard.

Considerable cost reduction with Inpress Control

It had found that Inpress Control was saving over EUR 23.900 in start up waste alone and Preset Plus had enabled the company to run from stock to stock easily and with minimal effort.

The 58 strong company handles work on a range of stocks from 65gsm through to 650micron, but always expects to run at maximum machine speed. Both machines run with 0 percent alcohol which combined with reduced waste, make these presses fantastically environmental machines as well.